Four abortion providers were surprise guests at the premiere of the documentary “Trapped” at the Sundance Film Festival, after keeping their plans secret to avoid potential threats.
Cosmopolitan reported on the providers attending “Trapped, which gets its name from TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws that have led to hundreds of abortion clinics closing in the South.
The four abortion providers who showed up at the screening spoke about why they continue to perform their duties in the face of potential danger.
“I just felt like I couldn’t call myself a comprehensive women’s health provider if I didn’t provide one of the most essential services that one in three women in this country need by the time they are age 45,” said Dr. Willie Parker, who works in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, according to Cosmo. “For me, it was a question of my humanity … I had to choose that I wasn’t going to be more of a man than I was going to be a human being, so that meant I had to understand what it meant to women not to have this service.”
Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, told the audience that she sees the issue as one of human rights and that women deserve a place where they can get care and “exercise their right to full humanity and dignity.”
June Ayers, owner and director or Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery, Alabama, echoed the sentiment that abortion is a basic human right.
“What good is it for [abortion] to be legal if there is nobody here to provide the service?” asked Dalton Johnson, the owner of Alabama Women’s Wellness Center.
See a tweet from the surprise appearance below.
Abortion providers get standing O at #Trapped premiere, surprise guests for "security reasons" #Sundance pic.twitter.com/FeTCWjRFxs
— Katie Van Syckle (@KatieVanSyckle) January 25, 2016